US State Dept Daily Press Briefing: June
30, 2008

Memorial Service for Peter Mackler from Agence France
Press Will Be Held this Afternoon Ken Bailes from the
Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs Is Retiring

MALAYSIA

Arrest of Mr. Anwar Ibrahim The
Rule of Law Needs to Stand Above Politics in Malaysia

IRAQ

The U.S. Is Not Involved in Any Decisions
to Award Iraqi Oil Contracts The U.S. Provides
Technical Advisors to all the Different Ministries in Iraq
U.S. Technical Experts are Not in Decision-Making
Positions The Iraqis Need to Pass a Hydrocarbons Law
to Show There Are Ground Rules The Oil Contracts are
Technical Service Agreements that are Fee-for-Service
Contracts Iraqi Contracts are Made Independent of the
United States Only One Company Involved is an American
Firm Concerns in the Kurdish Region Have Not Yet Been
Addressed It’s Up to Iraqis to decide how they’re
going to manage Their Own Economy and Affairs

ISRAEL

Contact the Government of Israel for Information on
Prisoner Exchange with Hezbollah

IRAN

Ambassador Ryan Crocker Talked about Cross-Border Operation
against Iran on CNN The MEK is a Terrorist Group and
the U.S. is Not Engaged in Discussions with Them

SOUTH
KOREA

The U.S. Has a Broad and Important
Relationship with South Korea American Beef is Safe
and a Product that Most of Us Here Enjoy on a Regular Basis
The South Korean Government is Capable of Representing
the Interests of South Korea The U.S. Negotiates with
South Korea as a Full and Equal Friend and Partner

CHINA/TIBET

The U.S. Supports Discussions
between China and Representatives of the Dalai Lama

ZIMBABWE

Jendayi Frazer is in Cairo at the
Summit of African Union Leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh
Frazer Discussed U.S. Cooperation with the AU on Many
Issues, Including Zimbabwe The President has Ordered a
New Round of Sanctions Against the Zimbabwean Gov’t
The AU, SADC, and G-8 Foreign Ministers have Issued
Statements on the Fraud Elections The U.S. Wants to
See a Political Resolution to the Crisis in Zimbabwe

PAKISTAN

The U.S. Will Do Everything it can to
Deal with the Threat of Usama bin-Ladin/al-Qaida
Military Action by the Pakistani Government Against
Extremists in Peshawar is Positive There Must be
Cooperation Between Afghanistan and Pakistan

KOSOVO

The Holy See of the Vatican Can Answer Questions on Its
Decision to Not Recognize Kosovo

TRANSCRIPT:

12:39 p.m. EDT

MR. CASEY: Okay. Well, good afternoon, everyone.

QUESTION: Good afternoon.

MR. CASEY: Good afternoon,
Mr. Lambros. I have two – actually, people-related issues,
as opposed to personnel, but things that I just wanted to
take the opportunity to mention today. The first is I know a
number of us here, including myself, will be headed over
this afternoon to a memorial service for our friend and
colleague, Peter Mackler from the associated – from –
excuse me, from Agence France Press, who passed away
suddenly a week ago this past Friday.

Peter was a
wonderful individual, a fantastic reporter who did
tremendous work, not only for AFP, but on behalf of many
journalists who he helped through training programs and
other efforts that he did somehow miraculously in what we
all know was his copious free time as a wire reporter. Peter
was a good friend to all of us. He was someone who did hold
for a while the State Department Correspondents Association
Presidency and did some good work on behalf of the
Association there. And he’ll be missed by all of us. And I
know the Secretary has spoken to this immediately after his
death, but I just wanted to go on record as noting our
condolences to his family, to his many friends, and also
best wishes for all his colleagues, too. So that’s number
one.

Number two – people-related – is also about a
departure of a different sort. I got an e-mail from a
gentleman I think most of you know, Ken Bailes, who for
many, many years, has been the Bureau of East Asia Pacific
Affairs Press Officer and Spokesperson, a individual who has
kept me from screwing up talking about Taiwan and North
Korea and so many different subjects over the years. You
know, Ken basically is the voice of authority on many of
these things for many of us who stood at this podium,
whether that was Nick Burns, who I know he worked with or
– well, I won’t mention Nick’s successor, but
certainly for the rest of us, we’ve come to rely on Ken a
lot for advice and for making sure that we describe our
policies in Asia correctly.

And Ken has announced that
after what I think is almost 30 years with the Department of
State -- I don’t want to age him any further -- that he is
going to be retiring as of this Friday. So – or actually,
as of this Thursday, since Friday is a holiday. I just want
to say my own personal thanks to Ken for keeping me out of
trouble to the best he was capable of doing over these last
few years, for all his efforts to keep many, many
spokespeople out of trouble over these past few years. And
so if you see Ken or talk to him anytime in the next few
days, please wish him a happy and healthy retirement. And
you can probably, I suspect, catch him singing with the
Washington Choral Arts Society and many of the other musical
groups that I know have occupied his time and I’m sure
will have an opportunity to do so more in the future. So
again, thank you for indulging me on a couple of these
non-official kinds of statements, but appreciate the
opportunity. And since it’s Monday, let’s see what
you’ve got.

Okay.

QUESTION: Speaking of Asia. I was
hoping you might comment on Mr. Anwar’s arrest in Malaysia
that Arshad raised this morning.

MR. CASEY: Sure. I did
get a chance to look into this a little bit here. And first
of all, my understanding is that no formal charges have been
filed, though this is an accusation that the police are
looking into. The main point for us is that the rule of law
needs to stand above politics. And we would certainly oppose
any use of law enforcement or judicial procedures for
anything other than legitimate purposes of the law. And as I
said, Malaysian police are supposed to be investigating this
accusation. I think you can talk to them as to the status of
that. I would note, of course, that Mr. Ibrahim previously
faced charges and, in fact, was convicted on a similar
offense a number of years ago and that that conviction
ultimately was overturned. So we would hope that there’s
not a pattern here. But certainly we would be concerned that
anything that is done, be done in a way that is appropriate,
that is a legitimate investigation of charges that might
exist under Malaysian law and would not be anything that was
a politically motivated investigation or prosecution.

Yes, ma'am.

QUESTION: How would you characterize
State’s role in the Iraqi Oil Ministry awarding of
contracts?

MR. CASEY: You guys are going to give me
another shot at that one, huh? Look, with all due respect to
the reporting that was done on this, that story I saw in a
major American newspaper today doesn’t really hold up
under scrutiny. The United States was not involved in any
decisions to award contracts, to make determinations of what
kinds of contracts would be offered, to provide advice over
what kinds of contracts would be offered. These are
technical experts that we have working in the Iraqi Oil
Ministry, who are similar to the technical experts we have
working in many ministries throughout the government. Saying
that they are somehow responsible for this matter, would be
equivalent to saying that the person who does your taxes is
responsible for how much income you earned. It’s simply
not true. And it’s kind of disappointing to see people out
there reporting that there was some larger role out there
that actually existed.

Sure.

QUESTION: Can you
characterize better the role that State has with regard to
the Ministry?

MR. CASEY: Well, the State Department for
– basically since we’ve had an Embassy established in
Iraq, has provided technical advisors to all the different
ministries. And again, we’ve all spoken about the
importance of having Iraq develop its institutions and
develop the capacity to be able to manage and support the
kinds of services that the people of the country need. And
whether that’s our PRTs, our Provincial Reconstruction
Teams, working out in the field to, you know, provide
assistance to local governments or advisors with technical
skills and specialties working with any of the various
ministries out there, that’s the intent. These aren’t
people who are in decision-making positions. They are, in
effect, to be able to help the Iraqis implement the
decisions that they make.

Yeah, Sylvie.

QUESTION: Tom,
would you have any comment about the exchange of prisoners
between Israel and Hezbollah? (Inaudible.)

MR. CASEY:
Well, at this point, the best thing I can tell you is that
this really is a matter that you’ll have to discuss with
the Israeli Government. You know, we’ve seen the press
reports about it. I don’t think we have much further to go
on. Obviously, this is an issue of great concern to them.
But I think for the moment, we’ll let them comment on
it.

Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Back to Iraq.

MR. CASEY: Okay,
let’s go back to that. Did you want to do
Iraq?

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. CASEY: No, no. Okay, let’s
do Iraq and then we’ll go ahead. Okay.

QUESTION: On the
Iraqi oil contracts, how do you sort of – I mean, in
response to Senator Schumer’s letter, if you could just
speak to that. Are you – I mean, I guess more cognizant --
-- do you give credence to the fact that perhaps that Iraq
should pass the hydrocarbon law first before, I guess,
passing out any contracts for any companies?

MR. CASEY:
Well, it’s long been our position that the Iraqis need to
pass a hydrocarbon law to be able to do what you’d expect
for any country that might seek or engage foreign companies
into their economy. You need to provide them with some
stability and some understanding of what the rules of the
road are. And a hydrocarbons law, I think, is important in
that.

I would note, and again, my understanding is these
are technical service agreements that are fee-for-service
contracts. They certainly aren’t about oil exploitation or
about anything other than providing support to develop the
existing infrastructure that’s there. And my understanding
is they would be expected to be of very short duration – I
think a year or two. So, you know, again, I don’t want to
try and make decisions on behalf of the Iraqis – it’s
the whole point here. But it’s clear that before they
would do any sort of major contracting in terms of
development or exploration, that probably they would want to
have in place – we would expect, they’ve said they want
to have in place, and I think most private companies would
want to see them have in effect a hydrocarbons law that
makes clear what the – again, what the rules of the road
are so that everyone can have an honest understanding going
in of how these things will develop and proceed.

QUESTION:
And obviously, this is very sensitive for the Arab Strait
and many who are opposed to the war, the fact that they were
questioning U.S. interests in going into Iraq. Can you speak
about this, and I guess if you can just speak in general
about sort of what does the State Department definitely not
do in terms of giving advice? How do you differentiate
between giving advice and playing an active role in the
contracts?

MR. CASEY: Well again, as I just said, you
know, you earn money every year. And you make decisions on
who your employer is and who you work for. You negotiate
your contract. You get your income. You have your taxes
taken out in a certain amount. You have certain deductions
you can do. And in the end of the year you may come to a tax
preparer and say, “Here’s everything I’ve done over
the course of the year. Can you fill out the forms for
me?” Saying that that person has decision -making
authority over everything that went into your year is
ridiculous. And it’s ridiculous to say that someone that
can help you write your decisions into appropriate contract
language or give you advice on how you might, you know,
fulfill decisions you’ve already taken, is somehow in a
position to influence or manage or otherwise influence those
decisions in the first place.

These are technical experts.
Again, they are, you know, not engaged in any kind of
decision- making. These are Iraqi contracts. They were made
by Iraqis, for Iraqis. They’re made independent of the
United States. And they weren’t done at the behest of the
United States or with a wink or a nudge or any kind of
influence on our part. So I think it’s misleading for
anyone to suggest that there was some kind of U.S.
Government role in this.

I’d also point out – and
again, this is just me – but as far as I can tell, at
least even in the press reports of this, only one of the
companies that anyone keeps citing as being able to get
these contracts is actually an American firm. So if we were
trying to steer business to American companies, we’d
certainly be doing a lousy job of it under these
circumstances.

Yeah.

QUESTION: I guess I don’t
totally follow your logic on the oil law. I mean, your
explanation or defense of Iraqi inaction on the oil law for
some time has been, well, they’re managing to figure out a
way to distribute oil revenue without it. You still want it,
but they’ve been managing to get part of the job done.
Now, they appear to be managing to get a good share of the
rest of the job done. They are figuring out how to open oil
fields and make, at least, initial arrangements for foreign
exploration and development of those oil fields. So other
than satisfying a promise the Iraqis have made to the U.S.
Government and a congressional benchmark issue, what’s the
point of the oil law at this – now?

MR. CASEY: Well, I
mean, you do raise a good point. And it is important that
they have figured out how to do what I think was the most
sensitive issue internally, politically for Iraq, which is
determine how to distribute oil revenues in and among the
various provinces. And that’s important because, you know,
all Iraqis need to know that they’re going to share in the
wealth of the country.

What is being signed here, as I
understand it, again, are technical service agreements that
would allow for maintenance or development of the
infrastructure. These aren’t, sort of, larger scale,
international investments in exploration or production or
development. And again, it’s up to the Iraqis to decide.
If they want everything to be done by a national oil
company, then that’s their decision and that’s fine. If
they want to have openings for international companies to do
that kind of work, that’s fine too. But in any country,
you need to have a firm basis, a firm legal basis, for
international development and for contracting of any kind of
international investment. And in effect, what having a
hydrocarbons law does is two things. The first is that it
assures internal Iraqi investors that there’s ground rules
for how this is going to operate, and it would assure any
outside investors that again, there’s those ground rules.
So if you need to raise a lot of capital to invest, whether
it’s in the oil sector or in another sector of the
country, you need to assure those people who might be
inclined to invest or might be inclined to come in that
there’s a clear legal foundation for doing so.

So I
think at this point, the value of the hydrocarbons law is
more in those long-term kinds of arrangements. But they are
important, since certainly Iraq, like every other country in
the world, needs to be able to have that kind of foundation
as they move forward to have a fully normal and correct
relationship with the international financial community and
with potential outside investors.

QUESTION: Do you still
consider the Iraqi Kurds and the Kurdish Regional Government
structure as the main impediment to getting that – the
final hydrocarbon law passed?

MR. CASEY: You know, I know
people are still talking about it, and I know there’s
still negotiations going on. I think each of the different
sectors in the country has their own interests. I don’t
want to try and put the onus for this on any one individual.
But ultimately, there are certainly concerns in the Kurdish
region that have not yet been addressed in a way that’s
allowed a final law to move forward.

Yeah,
Nicholas.

QUESTION: Just to follow up on this, Tom, sort
of from the other side of the coin. After all the sacrifices
and the trillions and gazillion dollars spent in Iraq in the
past five years, the American taxpayer might say: What’s
wrong with giving American companies preferential treatment
in those contracts? Do you know – what would you say to
that?

MR. CASEY: Well, what I would say to that is it’s
up to the Iraqis to decide how they’re going to manage and
run their own economy, how they’re going to manage and run
their own affairs. The efforts that we have made over time
certainly are important. The sacrifices that American
soldiers as well as the American taxpayers have made to fund
the war and to be able to help bring security to overthrow
Saddam Hussein, to bring a new democratic era to Iraq are
all important. But again, I don’t think anyone would
suggest that the reason why the United States went into Iraq
was a commercial or a reason based on business interest. It
clearly was not.

And again, I think the fact that Iraq
has been and will be able to make its own decisions on these
issues is incredibly important. We certainly want to see the
Iraqis be able to do so. We certainly want American business
to able to compete on a fair and level playing field. And
certainly we continue to believe not only in Iraq but
elsewhere, but that U.S. businesses are always going to be
very, very competitive in the international marketplace. But
our goal throughout, in terms of our policy, is making sure
that that playing field is level in giving American firms a
chance to compete fairly.

Mr. Lambros.

QUESTION: Yes.
Mr. Casey, USA/Iran. (Inaudible) has reported in the last
issue of New Yorker Magazine that the Bush Administration
steps up its (inaudible) cross-border operation against
Iran, sometimes 120 days prior to the presidential election,
November 4th. Any comment on that?

MR. CASEY: After I stop
laughing, I’ll try and address it for you. Look, Ryan
Crocker talked about this in his appearance with CNN. I’d
refer you to his remarks.

In terms of speculation about
intelligence- related issues, well, you can speculate with
intelligence officials about it.

QUESTION: One follow-up.
One follow-up.

MR. CASEY: Oh, sure, one
follow-up.

QUESTION: Yes. Okay. (Inaudible) has responded
to Mr. Crocker, saying today that, “Sometimes it's better
not to have the Ambassador know. He may not know the extent
to which we are operating already deep inside Iran.”

MR. CASEY: Ah, yes.

QUESTION: Any comment?

MR.
CASEY: Ah, yes. I’m sure it’s common for conspiracy
minded journalists to know more than the U.S. Ambassador to
a country. I don’t think that’s an argument that really
holds water.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Just to follow up on the
same story. (Inaudible) also outlines that the U.S. had –
may encourage or had some contacts with some of the
dissident groups, including Mujahedin-e Khalq and the PJAK.
Can you formulate a comment on this?

MR. CASEY:
Including, sorry, which groups?

QUESTION: The PJAK, which
is an extension of the PKK and the Mujahedin-e Khalq.

MR.
CASEY: Yeah. Well, you know, our policy is not to engage or
have discussions or contacts with terrorist groups. The MEK
is a terrorist group, and certainly we don’t – aren’t
engaged in any kinds of conversations or discussions with
them.

Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Elise.

QUESTION: On South
Korea, the protests over the beef deal have been continuing,
and it seems to be kind of emblematic of something larger --
tension between the U.S. and South Korea, at least from
where the South Korean public is concerned. Do you think
that this has more to do with – than just beef?

MR.
CASEY: I don’t know. You can ask the people who are out
their protesting why they’re protesting. But look, we have
a very broad and important relationship with South Korea.
It’s a relationship that has been one of strong allies and
friends over many, many years. Obviously, we have a strong
military cooperation and strong military relations with
South Korea. We’re engaged with them on a host of other
issues, including the Six-Party talks and our efforts to end
the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program. We’ve
engaged broadly on trade issues as well, and certainly there
is a huge trading relationship between the United States and
South Korea. We’re very pleased that over many years,
South Korea has really moved from a developing country to
one of the world’s most important economies, an important
market for us, and certainly the United States is an
important market for South Korea. That’s one of the
reasons why we went ahead and negotiated a free trade
agreement with South Korea because we believe that it’s
important for both Americans and Koreans to be able to have
the opportunity to trade fairly and to have products go back
and forth.

And on the beef issue, I think you’ve heard
from the Secretary, heard from any number of other people,
that this is one that is of concern, obviously, to many
people in South Korea. We believe that American beef is safe
and certainly a product that most of us here in the United
States enjoy on a regular basis. So we fully believe that
eventually South Korean consumers will come to believe the
same thing. But, again, consumers have choices and South
Korean consumers will be able to decide for themselves
whether they want to purchase these products or
not.

QUESTION: Some experts have said that the South
Korean public feels that the U.S. has kind of bullied South
Korea into making this deal because of its dominance of
power in the relationship.

MR. CASEY: Well, I think those
experts are, frankly, being condescending to the South
Koreans and the South Korean Government. The South Korean
Government is fully capable of representing the interests of
South Korea and of the South Korean people. And we negotiate
with South Korea as a full and equal friend and ally and
partner. That’s the basis on which these negotiations were
conducted. And certainly, we would look forward to any
conversations we have with the South Koreans, whether on
this or other issues, being done with a full atmosphere of
respect for South Korean sovereignty and full respect for
the ability of South Korea and its government officials to
make the right decisions on behalf of their people.

Yes,
sir.

QUESTION: Yeah, change topic to Tibet. Do you have
any expectation on the coming talk between Chinese
Government and Dalai Lama? And secondly, it was reported
that State Department regarded the Lhasa country as the
priority to deal with Chinese Government. Can you confirm
that?

MR. CASEY: Well, a couple of things. First of all,
we continue to support the discussions between the
Government of China and the representatives of the Dalai
Lama. We think that that kind of dialogue is important for
resolving the outstanding issues in Tibet and about Tibet.
Obviously, there have been previous rounds of discussions
and they have not dealt with successfully all of the issues.
But this is the way forward. We would hope that this
discussion would advance the cause of a resolution of many
of those outstanding issues in Tibet. The Secretary spoke to
this a little bit while she was in China as well.

In terms
of U.S. embassies and consulates and other kinds of
activities, I don’t have anything new to offer you on that
subject. I’m not aware that there’s been any new
conversations in that regard, though it certainly has been a
matter of discussion.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Did Secretary Rice
raise the controversy issue to the Chinese
(inaudible)?

MR. CASEY: I honestly don’t know. That’s
-- in terms of what conversations she had about this or any
other subjects in Beijing, I’d leave that to her and the
party to address for you. I simply haven’t a chance to
talk with them and get a readout on
it.

Nicholas.

QUESTION: Tom, is Jendayi Frazer in Cairo
and what is she doing there?

MR. CASEY: Jendayi Frazer’s
been attending, and I believe still is attending, the summit
of African Union leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh. Her main
purpose there has been to both talk broadly about U.S.
cooperation with the African Union on a variety of issues.
But most immediately, to talk with them about the very
serious situation in Zimbabwe and encourage the African
Union to move forward in terms of working to help bring
about a solution to the political crisis in that
country.

I believe, within the last couple of hours,
she’s actually given some remarks to some of your
colleagues out there, which I haven’t had a chance to hear
about in detail. But I think she’s been fairly open in
terms of discussing her business there.

QUESTION: You said
before the runoff on Friday that whatever the result is, and
it was clear what’s it going to be, the legitimacy of this
government or this president would be under serious question
and you wouldn’t recognize it. Now that he has been sworn
into office for another term – the 28th year, I guess, of
his role – what would be the practical measures that you
might be taking in terms of Zimbabwe – the Government of
Zimbabwe as illegitimate as you call it?

MR. CASEY: Well,
the President, as you know, on Saturday instructed Secretary
Rice and Secretary of the Treasury Paulson to work on a new
list, a new range of sanctions to be imposed against the
Government of Zimbabwe in light of the sham election.
That’s a process that’s ongoing. I don’t want to try
and predict for you specifically what day we might have
something to announce. But I’d expect we would be able to
put forward some ideas fairly soon on that. This is also
something the Secretary said we intend to bring back again
to the Security Council. My understanding is you can look
for a discussion of that and, of course, we would like to
see a resolution come out of that posing sanctions on
Zimbabwe. I think the first discussions of that will be
occurring on Wednesday.

We’ve also, as you may have
seen, have a very strong statement out of the G-8 Foreign
Ministers again, noting that this government, who’s being
formed as a result of these totally pathetic elections are
– does not have legitimacy in their eyes. We’ve seen
statements to the same effect from SADC. I think we’ve
seen some statements from the African Union Foreign
Ministers already. And we look to see what the AU heads of
state have done. Again, though, I think you’ll be seeing
actions taken in a variety of form, both directly by the
United States as well as in conjunction with our
international partners in the UN and elsewhere.

QUESTION:
So up in – I’ll see Jendayi’s remarks but, you know,
Mugabe’s being welcomed in Cairo as a head of state and
he’s an equal participant in the summit as anybody else.
What is she specifically seeking from – well, in terms of
help from others? (Inaudible) is to do what?

MR. CASEY:
Well, again, we want to see a political resolution of the
crisis in Zimbabwe. That, as you saw in the Secretary’s
statement about a week ago, means we would expect a
negotiated agreement reached between the two principle
political parties in that country. We’ve talked a little
bit last night in the statement we did then about that being
done through joint negotiating efforts on the part of the UN
and SADC and the AU.

Yeah, Nina.

QUESTION: A rather
broad question, I’m afraid. This article in The New York
Times about the hunt for al-Qaida over the last few years. I
mean, it’s making the accusation that this mission was
severely undermined by internal squabbles between the
Administration and the CIA (inaudible) this new special ops
plan that’s being held back as well. Do you have any
reaction to this? Do you think it’s fair to say that
there’s as much of a problem within the Administration
within the U.S. as there is between the U.S. and Pakistan in
dealing with this problem?

MR. CASEY: No. First of all,
I’d note that I don’t think I saw a single by-name
source in that article. What I can assure you is what the
President’s made clear is that the United States will do
everything that it can both to deal with the threat posed by
Usama bin Ladin, al-Qaida more broadly, and terrorism more
broadly than that. We’re going to do everything we can,
working with our international partners, whether that’s in
Pakistan, Afghanistan, or elsewhere, to see that that’s
done. And frankly, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to
people trying to fight out battles they may have already
lost and won internally in the bureaucracy somewhere. The
United States is committed to dealing with this problem. No
one in this building or anyplace else in this Administration
will ever do anything to undermine U.S. security.

QUESTION: But do you think there’s a clear consensus
now on how to proceed, especially with this new government
in Pakistan and their new agreements with tribal
leaders?

MR. CASEY: Well, I think you’ve heard from
Assistant Secretary Boucher. You’ve heard from many other
people in congressional testimony what our approach is. And
our private approach is exactly the same as our public
approach. We want to work with this new government. We want
to help strengthen democratic institutions in Pakistan. We
want to help strengthen Pakistan’s economy and provide
development and education opportunities for people in
Pakistan itself, as well as in the FATA.

At the same time
we also want to see this government work with us to confront
the challenges posed by extremism, and that includes not
just on the political and economic front, but also on the
military front, too. We’ve seen the Government of Pakistan
just over this past weekend take some military actions
against extremists in the area around Peshawar. I think
that’s a positive development and certainly hope and
expect that this government will continue to do so. We’ve
also made clear that there needs to be cooperation between
Afghanistan and Pakistan, both bilaterally and in
cooperation with us and NATO forces as well to make sure
that the area along the border is denied as a safe haven for
militants, either from the Taliban or al-Qaida to be able to
work. So certainly, we want to continue to do everything
that we can to deal with this problem.

And again, there
is no silver bullet here and there are no magic solutions.
Sometimes I think people oversimplify this problem by
assuming that there is simply one way of dealing with it.
There isn’t. That’s just the reality. It needs to use
military tools. It needs to use intelligence tools. It needs
political and economic tools. And our strategy moving
forward with this government is to bring every force to bear
that we can, both from the military and intelligence side,
as well as from the political and diplomatic side, to be
able to, together, bring about an end to this problem.

And you know, ultimately, whether it’s decisions taken
by the Government of Pakistan or decisions made here in
Washington, ultimately, how they have to be judged is by
whether or not they’re successful. And when they’re
successful, we’ll keep moving forward with them. If there
are issues or things that come up that aren’t successful,
similar to the previous agreements that the Pakistani
Government had made, the previous Pakistani Government had
made with some of the folks in the tribal area, then we’ll
adjust.

QUESTION: With
the new government saying that it’s still not keen on
having any kind of U.S. operations on Pakistani soil. Is
that something that you’d like to see changed?

MR.
CASEY: I don’t know. How many governments do you know are
interested in having foreign militaries do operations on
their soil? Look, we have a cooperative military
relationship with Pakistan. We give a large amount of
assistance to Pakistani forces as well as to those forces in
the tribal area of the so-called Frontier Corps to be able
to help them be able to fight these battles themselves.
Ultimately, it’s in our interest that they are able to
manage security fully and completely inside their country.
But we do have cooperation with them. We’ll continue to
have cooperation with them. But obviously, anytime you’re
talking about military operations of any kind, they need to
be done in cooperation with your allies and partners.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Not to beat a dead horse, but --

MR.
CASEY: Oh, come on. Let’s whip it a few more times.

QUESTION: Okay. You talked about a level playing field
for U.S. companies in the Iraqi oil contracting.

MR.
CASEY: Yeah.

QUESTION: If there were elements in the
Iraqi laws that we did not necessarily like, like no-bid
contracts or things that would not fly here. What would our
reaction be to that?

MR. CASEY: Well, again, if you look
at globally U.S. policy on investment laws, on business
practices, on any of the other kinds of measures that infect
that investment or business climate, our goal is national
treatment. Our goal is that U.S. companies are not singled
out for special treatment in a negative way that they
aren’t subject to separate kinds of rules or regulations
or subjected to things that would limit their ability to
compete fairly and effectively. I’m not aware that
anything that has been put into legislation to date by the
Iraqis does that. But just as with any other country, and I
expect as we move forward in our relationship with Iraq, if
we saw anything that we thought was creating a unequal
playing field or providing some kind of block on the ability
of U.S. companies to compete fairly, I’m sure we’d
discuss it with them.

Yeah.

QUESTION: What about on
prospecting contracts? This is almost sort of like when
companies survey an area for business. Can you speak to
whether the State Department advise on prospecting contracts
and how many were there possibly?

MR. CASEY: I’m going
to try and make this as absolutely clear as possible to you.
We don’t tell the Iraqis who to give contracts to. We
don’t tell the Iraqis what kind of contracts to give. We
don’t tell the Iraqis how they should organize their Oil
Ministry or any other ministry. We provide technical advice
that allows them to implement decisions that they make for
themselves. And any assertion to the contrary, frankly, is
just flat-out wrong.

Okay. Sylvie. No, okay.

QUESTION:
On Kosovo, Mr. Casey --

MR. CASEY: Oh. Well, okay,
we’ll let you sneak one in on Kosovo, Mr. Lambros, because
I think Anne then might have one other thing.

No. Okay,
good.

QUESTION: On Kosovo. Mr. Casey, the Holy See of the
Vatican will not recognize Kosovo as an independent state in
any near future. It was announced officially by Cardinal
Walter Casper during his official visit to Russia. Any
comment on that?

MR. CASEY: Nope. That’s their
decision.

Thanks.

QUESTION: And also, any
communication between State Department and the Vatican
(inaudible) decision?

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